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discussion

Building the kingdom is for Imperialists

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grant
Mar 11 2002
11:17 am

What if we think of kingdom building in terms of cultivation? Cultivating is not just stewardship, but a working in the fields with that which God has given, a sowing of seeds that will make for a great harvest.

Without wanting to sound too Aristotelian, we could say that the kingdom, then, is both the fully grown tree (the kingdom that is to come) and the seed (the kingdom here and now). I think I may be pushing the mustard seed parable in the wrong direction with this, though. All I’m really trying to say is that the term “kingdom building” might be acceptable if we understood it not as a result of our labor, but as the task of the kingdom to which we are called, a building of the kingdom toward the kingdom. Though I don’t object to the “building of the kingdom” terminology, it might be less confusing (and more Biblical?), however, to speak the language of cultivation.

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kstarkenburg
Feb 27 2002
07:21 am

I think the mission statement rhetoric this site uses to galvanize the troops of Jesus creates an unhealthy spirit that is destined to either continually frustrate us with waves of guilt and anxiety or subtly usher us into self-delusion about our accomplishments. If there is anything I’ve learned over the past few years that is helpful, it is this: We do not build the kingdom. We enter it. We receive it. We participate in it. We play in it. We laugh at it. We sing it. We anticipate it. We wonder about it. We represent it. But, we do not build it. Our lives together are largely symbolic lives that represent an anticipation of the kingdom of God that is at hand. Do a quick read through the books of Matthew and Luke, for instance. The verbs used to describe our relationship to the kingdom circle around “entering” or “receiving” the kingdom. Consider chapter 25 of Matthew which presents three stories about what the kingdom is “like.” (Not what it is, what it is “like”). We are to wait like the wise bridesmaids who had enough oil to obviate the troubles involved in waiting on a bridegroom who has lots to do. The bridesmaids waited to enter. We are to be stewards of the property given to us by the lord of the manor so that when he returns we can enter into the joy of our master. We will inherit the kingdom if we have shown hospitality to the Son of Man as the hungry one, the thirsty one, the strange one, the naked one, the sick one, the imprisoned one.
Notice, then, that our waiting is filled in by active preparation of ourselves for the kingdom of heaven. But, our preparation for the kingdom is also a means of entering the kingdom – the kingdom of heaven is at hand after all. We anticipate the kingdom as we receive its gifts in thanksgiving. We bear witness to its presence. But, the building of the kingdom is done by another.
That’s enough for now, I suppose.

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Jasonvb
Feb 27 2002
11:11 am

kstarkenburg,

I share your concern for Christians using and buying into the type of guilt-inducing, self-deluding rhetoric you describe. I don’t see, though, how CINO is using this type of rhetoric. When the phrase “kingdom building” is used here, I think it is with full reliance and dependence on Christ. For certain, “we” do not build the kingdom. In fact, nothing good comes from me, except through the grace of God. I have faith that he is using me as an instrument in his creation to change things, make them better.

My understanding is that Christ will eventually restore ALL things. His kingdom will be fully realized in the new heaven and the new earth. While we WAIT in eager hope and expectation for the kingdom to be fully realized, we aid the work of the Spirit by making things better. Our aiding the Spirit’s work is what I call “kingdom building”, which is done by the Spirit, though us.

I don’t think I agree that our lives are “largely symbolic lives”. To me that gives the impression that now doesn’t really matter. I think now and what we do now matters a lot to both God and us!

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kirstin
Feb 27 2002
01:04 pm

clever words—but don’t let an issue of semantics divert attention from the unambiguous challenge of the gospel, to serve God above all and others before self. “building the kingdom” is just one way of naming this important work.

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kstarkenburg
Feb 27 2002
01:32 pm

As I looked at my first post, I think I appear much too caustic. Sorry about that cheaply evocative title. Here’s what I really mean. This website is superb, cool, and helpful. I agree with everything the last two replies mentioned, with one exception. What Jason describes is really not “kingdom building.” It is kingdom stewarding or kingdom receiving and entering, but not “kingdom building.”

Also, what I meant to convey by describing our lives as symbolic was not that our lives do not matter, but that they matter immensely in the face of fully operative powers and corruptions that are never completely overcome until heaven comes down to earth. Consider Jesus’ healing miracles (they were all “healing” I suppose). Not one of the folks healed by Jesus still walk the earth. They needed healing and their healing was real and powerful. However, their function was largely to show, demonstrate, or anticipate what has come near but has not yet fully come – the reign of God. Those healings created space in their marred psyches so that they could live lives of the impossible cross. To live the life of the cross, however, is to fail over and over for your faithfulness because the kingdom is coming.

Again, I admit making the foolish and insensitive mistake of posting a negative post on the first run. What I really want to say is that, as one Dordt prof I knew once said, we need our talk to match our walk (which is fairly cheesy but accurate for my purposes). This site isn’t really about building the kingdom, it is about entering it.

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Norbert
Feb 27 2002
04:13 pm

Thanks for the quantifier. I guess I’m still a bit confused about your angle. The middle paragraph in particular I find a bit questionable. Can you clarify:
“Those healings created space in their marred psyches to live lives of the impossible cross. To live the life of the cross, however, is to fail over and over for your faithfulness because the kingdom is coming.”

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kstarkenburg
Feb 27 2002
05:43 pm

My guess is that my final sentence is the most confusing. All I mean here is that real faithfulness to the kingdom of God, in the sense of following Jesus, comes with the cross – or suffering for the sake of the kingdom. Put concretely, we may be a Christian politician who never gets elected. Or, we may be a church who routinely decides that harassment and torture by the local authorities is worth struggling against the powers of the local sweatshop. In both cases, a community or a person may “achieve” very little but still live as resistant peacemakers. We do this because the kingdom is coming and we do it to testify to that coming kingdom.

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BBC
Mar 05 2002
12:17 am

I wonder whether perhaps part of the problem is that you are looking at the term and the results from the standpoint of general society. Kingdom Building, in the eyes of the British Empire (or Microsoft) means taking and controling terrritory, subjugating peoples, and most of all, making more money. When you talk about how a Christian trying to transform the kingdom may accomplish very little if they run for office and don’t get elected, it seems to me that you are falling into the same trap of looking at success from the general society perspective. If my church doesn’t grow too much, but becomes an authentic refuge for hurting people — if i run for office, don’t get elected, but cause some people to think — if I give up the chance to make a lot of money in favor of an activism position with only a symbolic wage — all these things make me a failure in the general society view. All of them are also transformative and successful from the perspective of God’s kingdom. Language gets so tricky because what God does through us is so revolutionary that it even distorts (or clarifies) the way we describe it, no?

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kstarkenburg
Mar 11 2002
08:53 am

I’m not sure I quite understood your last sentence, but in regard to the rest of your response, I’m with you all the way. With one exception. My initial thrust – and continuing point – is that you’ll not find the command “Build the kingdom of God” in any canonical text I know. At least, I haven’t found it. Now, of course, I’m not advocating for our speech to be outcome of internal biblical repetitions machines, but our language needs to have a consonance with Scripture. I think “kingdom building” or any clause in its semantic domain is a phrase dissonant with Scripture. As such, I claim that it will damage us in the long run.

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BBC
Apr 09 2002
11:53 am

Am I right that it is the word kingdom that you object to more than the word building? (Or maybe it is the imperialist connotation of the two of them together?) Would you object to thinking of it in terms of some other sort of craft? sculpting the kingdom? Joining together to play the music of the kingdom? Something like that?

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kstarkenburg
Sep 11 2002
11:26 am

I object to building, not kingdom. Not crafting either. Not as a root metaphor anyway. The root metaphor ought to be witness, receive, enter, etc. Why? Because of the quick transcendent finish of the future, the end of history as we know it.